In many municipalities, the regulation and management of vehicle parking poses challenges for municipal governments. Municipal governments frequently enact various parking policies (e.g., rules and regulations) to govern the parking of vehicles along city streets and other areas. As an example, time limits may be posted along a street and parking fines may be imposed on vehicle owners who park their vehicles for longer than the posted time. Proper management and enforcement of parking polices provide benefits to these municipalities in that traffic congestion is reduced by forcing motorists who wish to park for long periods to find suitable off-street parking, which in turn, creates vacancies for more convenient on street parking for user by other motorist who wish to stop only for short term periods. Further, the parking fines imposed on motorists who violate parking regulations create additional revenue for the municipality. However, ineffectively enforcing parking policies results in a loss of revenues for the municipalities.
A fundamental technical problem encountered by parking enforcement personal in effectively enforcing parking policies is actually detecting when vehicles are in violation of a parking policy. Conventional techniques for detection of parking policy violations include using either parking meter installed adjacent to each parking space or a technique referred to as “tire-chalking.” Typical parking policy enforcement involves parking enforcement personnel circulating around their assigned parking zones repetitively to inspect whether parked vehicles are in violation of parking policies based on either the parking meters indicating that the purchased parking period has expired, or a visual inspection of previously made chalk-marks performed once the parking time limit has elapsed. With either technique, many violations are missed either because the parking attendant was unable to spot the violation before the vehicle left or because of motorist improprieties (e.g., by hiding or erasing a chalk-mark).